Functional Equivalence in Cross-Cultural Myth Transmission: English Translation of Buddhist & Taoist Culture-Loaded Terms in Black Myth: Wukong

Abstract

As a landmark Chinese cultural IP going global, Black Myth: Wukong integrates abundant Buddhist and Taoist cultural elements with numerous culture-loaded terms. Based on Nida’s functional equivalence theory, this study takes 86 typical Buddhist and Taoist culture-loaded terms in the game as research objects, and adopts corpus analysis and empirical verification with 120 overseas players’ feedback. Findings show that the official translation flexibly uses foreignization, domestication, literal-free translation and transliteration with annotation, which balances cultural integrity and players’ understanding and basically realizes functional equivalence. This research enriches the application of functional equivalence theory in game translation and provides a reference for the international communication of Chinese mythological IPs.